Interim Working Group Chair Meeting Summary (March 2021)

23 March 2021

Attendees:

Sandoche Balakrichenan, Fergal Cunningham, Angela Dall’Ara, Constanze Dietrich, Gert Döring, Rob Evans, Ondřej Filip, Antony Gollan, Will Van Gulik, Julf Helsingius, Shane Kerr, Florence Lavroff, Desiree Miloshevic, Brian Nisbet, Niall O’Reilly, Brian Trammell, Alireza Vaziri, Leo Vegoda, Denis Walker, Martin Winter

Chair: Mirjam Kühne

Scribe: Karla Liddle-White

1. Appeals Review and PDP Evolution: List of Recommendations and Next Steps

The WG chairs discussed the recommendations in the draft PDP Evolution documentand the draft Appeals Review document.

There was agreement that the RIPE Chair was the author of the PDP and was responsible for reviewing the process, and that any changes to the PDP should be agreed by community consensus and published as a RIPE Document. The next step was to publish a document to support discussion with the community.

Regarding the appeals process, the chairs felt there was room for improvement in clarifying when a WG chair should recuse themselves from an appeal. It was acknowledged that the relevant WG chairs, the proposer, the appellant and the RIPE Chair Team should excuse themselves.

In addition to that, it was agreed that if there could be a conflict of interest, others should recuse themselves accordingly.  The wording in the recommendation refers to a “non-exhaustive list of categories of individuals having an obligation to be recused from the initial stage of the appeal procedure”.

The group agreed that two weeks was a good deadline for the person making an appeal to escalate an appeal to the RIPE Chair and an additional two weeks for the RIPE Chair to review any escalated appeals and make a final decision, as this aligned with the other four-week phases in the PDP.

The group also discussed the fact that the informal discussion before a policy proposal was introduced had become a part of the PDP (Discussion Phase). The original intent of this preparation phase had been lost along the way, and it was agreed that people should test the waters on a working group mailing list before starting the PDP.

It was then agreed that the documents and recommendations should be published and shared with the community, before the RIPE Chair would work on an updated draft of the PDP.

2. New Draft Code of Conduct

The chairs discussed the draft Code of Conduct (CoC) and the next steps being taken. A BoF had been proposed for RIPE 82 to talk about the next two documents the CoC TF would produce. The chairs were also reminded of the request for comment on the new draft which had a deadline of 2 April.

The essence of the code was discussed, which was about respect, accommodating cultural differences and listing examples of what people should and should not do. It was also noted that people should use their good judgement and while examples provided guidance, this was not an exhaustive list. The group also discussed how the CoC would work in practice and what the role of a WG chair would be in the process.

It was noted that the new CoC would apply to all participation in RIPE. It was clarified that current implementation of the CoC (i.e. the Trusted Contacts) would remain in place until a new process had been developed by the CoC TF and agreed by the community.  

3. AOB

3.1. Operational Questions on RIPE Mailing Lists

It was agreed that the community should always be helpful when people have operational questions and they could do more to point people to relevant NOGs. It was also suggested that the NOG list on RIPE Labs could be promoted more widely.